LGDGaming is a vast Chinese organisation that has been present in the Dota 2 pro scene since the very beginning. The team owner is a Chinese business-woman, known by the name LGD Ruru.

At a certain point, the organisation felt like it needs to create a secondary, younger team – LGD Forever Young.

Due to the vast quality and potential of the Chinese Dota 2 scene, the sister team has improved slowly but steadily, and are now equally skilled and competitive as the main LGD Gaming lineup.

Today, the two teams stand side by side in terms of performance, but many people still see LGD.FY as the “secondary LGD lineup”.

Regardless, both LGD and LGD.FY have shown that they belong in the top 3 of the Chinese Dota scene, with Newbeefirmly entrenched right on top.

Below, we’ll talk about both teams from the Lao Gan Die organisation that are participating at The International 7.

LGD Gaming

Wang ‘Ame’ Chunyu

Lu ‘Maybe’ Yao

Ren ‘old eLeVeN’ Yangwei

Yao ‘Yao’ Zhengzheng

Chen ‘Victoria’ Guanhong

This year’s TI7 will be 5th in a row that LGD Gaming will attend. Although, they haven’t exactly been the most consistent team, as their latest win at Mars Dota 2 Leaguein a five game series against their sister squad, LGD.FY is their first premier LAN title in over two years.

However, no matter who they have on their roster, they always aim for the gold, or rather, the Aegis of Champions.

GodBlessMali / Twitter

The player to keep an eye on in LGDGaming is definitely Maybe. His aggressive mid playstyle resembles that of SumaiL, and also both players’ signature hero is Storm. Maybe also plays some damn good Shadow Fiend and Invoker.

Another player I’d like to point out is Victoria, who is in my opinion currently one of the top 3 position #5 players.

LGD.Forever Young (LFY)

Du ‘Monet’ Peng

Xie ‘Super’ Junhao

He ‘Inflame’ Yongzheng

Tue Soon ‘Ahfu’ Chuan

Leong ‘ddc’ Fat-meng

LFY has a bit of an unusual playstyle. The meta suits them, but unlike other teams, they almost never have 3 core positions in their lineup.

The veteran, ddc, plays the forgotten support position #6, while the team picks up 1 or 2 big core heroes, and complement the draft with 2 and sometimes even 3 position #4 heroes, which seems to be working out just fine for the team, as evidenced by them qualifying for TI this year.

ddc, in particular, is one of the few to have ever been to every TI.

LFY’s ganking phase looks pretty slow and dull, and they are not the team that prefers early aggression. This may seem like a flaw, but actually, this is a well thought out game-plan.

The team has resolved visa issues which have been a problem for them in the past, so they can fully focus on training and preparation for their biggest event up to date!

Expectations For Both LGD Gaming Squads At TI7

LFY is definitely rich in talent and their cautious and meticulously thought out play style will definitely help them win a couple of games at TI7. It wouldn’t be far off for them to expect them to finish at top 8 judging by the form they recently showed at both MDL 2017 and EPICENTER 2017.

Meanwhile, for LGD Gaming, they’ll definitely be looking to wash away the bitter taste of last year’s 9-12th place finish. That essentially means anything worse than top 8 would be considered a big failure for them.

Ultimately, both LGD Gaming squads are headed into The International 7 as dark horses and have a huge chance to finish in the top 4.